An Experiment
by CampionSayn
Summary: A quietly spent day in Wayne Manor is meant to be spent among family. They're not all related, but it's still fun to annoy each other. Batfamily fic, one-shot. Rated for swearing.


Title: An Experiment.  
>Summary: Dick gets to experience a very human thing with his brothers during a quiet day at the manor. Batfamily one-shot.<br>Warning: Pure fluff and crossover with the comics and other animated series and, of course, age change to make Dick the youngest of the Bat brothers.  
>Disclaimer: I don't own anything and make no money off of this.<br>Dedication: To **Rose Midnight Moonlight Black**because it's nice to have a trade-off on occasion and I've been so bored lately. I also now have a reason to participate in the YJ challenge for Dick being the youngest of his siblings, so…cool.

Notes: Age change goes a little something like this, so I don't have to tolerate questions on it-  
>Dick=13<br>Jason=17  
>Tim=20<br>Damian and Tallant=25  
>Terry=29<br>Bruce=Not a Freaking Clue.

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><p><em>-:-<br>I love character lines, little wrinkles, little scars. I love eyes that you look into and find a dark, vast place of stories and knowledge.  
>-Jennifer Love Hewitt.<em>

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><p>The sounds of The Waxman are echoing throughout the entirety of Wayne manor along with the once in a while (so that Dick was very much aware he was still around) footsteps of Terry, his eldest brother, walking along the halls as he whined over the report he had to turn into Lucius Fox as a revised version of what the company stockholders expected from the research department. One of Bruce's punishments for Terry disappearing to a foreign country to chase a lead—that pulled through—without giving Bruce a call for three days and quietly scaring Dick and his other brothers half to death.<p>

Dick rolled within the blue and red atop his form—like a little squirming baby bunny in a den, and directed his attentions to the kitchen, where he could hear Jason and Tim fighting again, only this time, instead of each others' performance on the job—all the way over in Jump City, from what Dick could gather, lucky bastards—they were critiquing the others' way of baking. Jason, Dick could smell and just know from his behavior, was baking a red velvet cake, after leaving the mixture to cool overnight in the fridge (much to Alfred's chagrin and mild disgust) and probably slapping Tim's hands away from the oven every time the older man tried to open up the heated box to see if the concoction was going to explode. Dick would laugh, as Jason just said the F word for the sixteenth time that hour, but then, that would defeat the purpose of this little experiment he was conducting. Stealth was important and, so far, nobody had noticed him.

This, normally, would please him, but after waiting and waiting and silently begging for something else to happen (preferably Damian and Tallant sparring with full fencing gear through the manor like last week when Dick had brought Conner over and had left the clone confused even after he'd left to hop cross-country back for Mt. Justice), his form was getting a little uncomfortable under all of the pants and sweaters he'd had Alfred dump on top of him after a spin in the dryer.

If nothing happened in the next five minutes that the little Robin could entertain himself with, he was just going to take a little nap under all the nice, clean smelling fabric.

Wiggling slowly around again, a red sock passing his line of vision that didn't seem like it really should be with all the other clothes on top of him, Dick turned into the far side of the couch and his nose brushed against something solid that had previously not been there.

"What the…"

His minor break in silence was interrupted by the pants Dick normally wore to school that had been settled atop his head being removed and the blue eyed boy had to blink a few times as lights from all of the big windows shining down into the living room beamed into his vision and nearly blinded him. Two more blinks and he found equally blue eyes—though a bit sharper and older—looking through the hole in his hideaway; amusement written along the lining of his older brother, Damian's, face. He wasn't smiling, but Dick had this way with him and knew he was curious and holding back a smirk of some kind.

"Little brother," a voice near Dick's feet—identical to Damian's in every way, except a deeper and more ingrained accent—questioned, with a sudden feeling of fingers pinching his big and two other toes on his right foot that was, like his left foot, and rather ironically (given the situation), bare and without socks or stockings of some sort, "What exactly are you doing?"

Now, it must be said that, while Dick did love all of his brothers—and he did love them all, really, he did; he had even managed to convince Wally of this after the boy with a black hole for a stomach had found out his secret ID (curse intercity villain team-ups)—he had to admit that he did not quite love them exactly equally, no matter how hard he tried. Damian was his unspoken favorite (god only knew why, though, after all the crap he put his baby brother through) with Terry coming in a close second; Dick loved Timmy and Jay equally, but that was mostly because when together they tended to give Dick visions of them in the most hilarious situations and apart they were sort of like the Chinese symbol for equality—good vs. bad and all that—that set an example for Dick to live by, which was to follow Tim's example in life and his brains in costume, but follow Jason's gusto and such, without the occasional rage.

All that said, considering Tallant had been with the family the shortest amount of time and had been under the influence of his and Damian's mother for a lot longer than Damian (which Dick tried not to think about), Dick was still a little freaked out by Tallant.

Which was why Dick—as casually as possible—removed his foot from his brother's grasp and wiggled further into Damian's lap before answering.

"Stealth training," the youngest brother in the Wayne household answered with a smile. Like it was the most normal thing in the world to pretend one were a part of an ensemble of clothes waiting to be folded so he could eavesdrop on everything and everyone in the house. Damian made a mental note to remind Richard of certain rules to follow outside the house and not to do this at his headquarters with his friends; the older, shorter haired twin on the couch would hate to think Dick would unwind from his position in a pile of discarded clothing before the presence of the blonde archer or—heaven forbid—the Superman clone and get injured or accidently put in a coma for his fun.

Better yet, Damian would talk with Father, once he got back from meeting with that Luthor about the merging of a company project in Kasnia.

At the top of the staircase, and as Damian was just about to critique Dick on his choice of setting—really, the annex to the kitchen and stairs was a much better place to pick off their other brothers' drivel—The Waxman finally ceased its orchestra of violins and piano notes racing each other in a whirling Dervish of sound to the ending, and a loud enough 'He-Hem' sounded, grabbing all brothers upon the sofa's attentions. They looked to the stairs and found Terry walking down in little else but his training shorts and a simple white top that had many ladies drooling whenever he visited the Country Club with Bruce.

"Want to go and do something? I'm bored," the eldest whined in a most undignified manner that made Damian and Tallant mutually flinch and frown and squint in distaste, but allowed Dick the opportunity to snort under his breath at how much Terry always sounded so much younger than himself and even Dick (sometimes even sounding more immature than Wally when he was bickering about nothing with Artemis).

Damian gracelessly leaned across Dick's stomach, picked up one of the already bundled into themselves brown socks, aimed and then tossed the foot clothing at Terry's face. He missed, but not by much.

"You're not bored," Damian corrected in a voice that was meant to imitate Terry's whining, complete with the mild contempt Dick was started to note he really didn't feel for the older blue eyed brunette with the heart of a twenty year old playboy, "You're avoiding your work that Father put upon your shoulders."

"Am not," Terry smiled, a little guilty as he padded over to the couch and, without asking or really pausing or taking notice of the pain in his hip Dick was careful to avoid as he was placed on Terry's shoulders like a little kid, "I got…most of it…finished. Now I want to do something with my little brothers before dad sucks us back into the vacuum of his company business. Please? We can try swimming. Or rooftop tag. Or we could fly the RF77 Blackbirds that I stole the keys to when dad wasn't looking."

Dick had to push down the question that always came up in situations like this—why was it that Terry was the only one that called Bruce dad, aside from Dick himself while all the others called him Father, or Old Man or Bruce (in Jason's case, the same difference)—and instead leaned over Terry's head to try and look into bright blue eyes so like his own, only not.

"Blackbirds? Really?"

"…No, but I had to put in something more interesting to get a reaction out of the twins," Terry smiled even more widely, white teeth showing like rows of white painted fences before a church as he pointed to the twins, Tallant waving his long hair back over his white suited shoulder and Damian wadding up a pair of pants and aiming them directly at Terry's…littlest appendage.

Terry laughed and avoided the shot, bolting out of the immediate area, laughing his head off and allowing Dick to hold even more tightly to the hair growing from his head as they ran through the war zone that was the battle ground Jason and Tim were performing in—Tim taking out his own finished cinnamon cookies as Jason pulled on his belt to get him out of Terry's way—with Damian yelling in Arabic and chasing after them. Dick had no doubt that Tallant was still on the couch, rolling his eyes and now was just the beginning of a no holds game of Rooftop Tag.

Hopefully, Dick could hold on long enough to Terry and not fall off and fall to his end atop Wayne Manor's, what, three or four story heights? Damian freaked out really bad that happened last time.


End file.
